History of spectroscopy and modern micromachined disposable Si ATR-IR spectroscopy

In this article, the historical development of spectroscopy is examined and the spectroscopy devices used today are described. Then, we focus on infrared (IR) spectroscopy, which cannot give valuable signal in aqueous solution. Attenuated total reflection (ATR)-IR technique solves the problem. In addition, we specifically mention newly developed disposable ATR-IR crystals and micromachined silicon (Si) ATR-IR. Disposable crystal systems and microfluidics systems can be integrated with existing miniature ATR analyzers. If the integration is successful, the technique might be used in biomedical measuring instruments, reactions' analyses, and ultra-high-pressure analyses.     

Visualization of concentration field in a vortex ring using acetone PLIF

To improve the understanding of flame propagation through a nonpremixed vortex ring, the characteristics of fuel concentration in a vortex ring have been investigated experimentally. The vortex ring was generated by the ejection of propane with a single stroke motion of a speaker. Planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique was adopted by seeding acetone as a tracer to fuel stream, in which the PLIF signal intensity is directly proportional to the concentration of acetone. This technique provides non-intrusive and instantaneous measurement of concentration field. Results showed that fuel concentration and its gradient decreased with the evolution of a vortex ring. When a nonpremixed flame propagated through a vortex ring, the flame location coincides with the inner most spiral mixing layer of fuel and air in a vortex ring.     

A high statistics measurement of the Lambda(+)(c) lifetime

A high statistics measurement of the Lambda(+)(c) lifetime from the Fermilab fixed-target FOCUS photoproduction experiment is presented. We describe the analysis technique with particular attention to the determination of the systematic uncertainty. The measured value of 204.6 +/- 3.4 (stat) +/- 2.5 (syst) fs from 8034 +/- 122 Lambda(+)(c)-->pK(-)pi(+) decays represents a significant improvement over the present world average.     

Transient binary nucleation from ethanol-hexanol vapour

We study condensation of ethanol-hexanol vapour by numerical solution of kinetic equations. The number of droplets formed in unit volume is computed within self-consistent classical model. It is shown that formation of ethanol-rich droplets prevails at the initial stage of nucleation process, but in the stationary state formation of droplets near the saddle point (on cluster formation energy surface) plays the dominant role. Presented at the 6th Joint Seminar “Development of Materials Science in Research and Education”, Karlštejn, Czech Republic, 17–19 September 1996. This work was supported by Grant No. A1010615 of the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.     

Structure and polarity of 8CB films evaporated onto solid substrates

Brewster-angle reflection ellipsometry and surface optical second harmonic generation were used to study the growth of 4'-n-octyl-4-cyanobiphenyl (8CB) films evaporated in air onto polymeric and quartz glass substrates. The layer-by-layer growth of the films terminates after formation of two distinctive interfacial layers. Both of these two layers are polar and tilted. In the first layer the molecules lie nearly flat on the surface, while in the second layer they point on average about 50° toward the surface normal. The dipole moment of the second layer has a lower magnitude and an opposite direction with respect to the dipole moment of the first layer.     

Surface Nucleation Kinetics on Active Centers from Supersaturated Vapor

The formation of nuclei from a supersaturated vapor on a surface with active centers is treated within standard self-consistent classical model with exhaustion of active centers. Basic characteristics of nucleation process (total number of nuclei, nucleation rate, time lag and size distribution of nuclei) are determined by numerical solution of kinetic equations. It is shown that standard approach to nucleation on active centers based on Avrami model coincides with our approach in the values of time lag of nucleation process, but it differs in the total number of nuclei.     

Stereoscopic video surveillance system for detection of target’s 3D location coordinates and moving trajectories

In this paper, a novel stereoscopic video surveillance system to track a target person and detect its three-dimensional (3D) location coordinates and moving trajectory is implemented by using the pan/tilt-controlled stereo camera system. Stereoscopic video images of a target person are captured with stereo camera system and the target face and its location in the left image plane can be detected by use of YCbCr color model and centroid method. Also the target location in the right image plane can be obtained through correlation between the left face image and the right image by using the binary phase extraction joint transform correlator (BPEJTC) algorithm. With these location data of the target face in the left and right image planes the pan/tilt systems can control the stereo camera to track a target person by positioning the target face at the center of the camera’s FOV and making the focusing points of the right and left camera coincided on the target face. And then, with the resultant pan/tilt angles and geometric parameters of the stereo camera system, the target’s real 3D location coordinates and moving trajectory in the world space can be obtained. From some experiments with 900 frames of stereoscopic video image pairs, it is analyzed that the target’s center location after being tracked is kept to be very low error ratio of 0.62%, 2.04% on the average in the x, y directions of the image plane, respectively. Also, the error ratio between the calculated and measured values of the 3D location coordinates of a target person is found to be very low value of 2.1%, 5.7% on the average in the X and Y directions of the real world space, respectively.     

Abnormal adsorption behavior of dimethyl disulfide on gold surfaces

Adsorption of dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) on gold colloidal nanoparticle surfaces has been examined to check its binding mechanism. Differently from previous results, DMDS molecules adsorbed on the gold surface at high concentration showed the S–S stretching band at 500 cm⁻¹ in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra, which indicates the presence of intact adsorption of DMDS molecules. However, it was found that the S–S bond of disulfides was easily cleaved on the gold surface at low concentration. These behaviors were not observed for diethyl disulfide (DEDS) or diphenyl disulfide (DPDS). Our results indicate that DMDS molecules with the shortest alkyl chains on the gold surface can be inserted into self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) without the S–S bond cleavage during self-assembly due to insufficient lateral van der Waals interaction and the low adsorption activity of disulfides, whereas DEDS with longer alkyl chains or DPDS with the weak disulfide bond dissociation energy would not. These unusual DMDS adsorption behaviors were examined by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We also compared the bonding dissociation energy of the S–S bonds of various disulfides by means of a density functional theory (DFT) calculation.